As when, in eighteen forty, I first sung out, “Yo, heave ho!”
No, I’ve never yet been ailing,
Since the time I went a-sailing;
An’ though I’ve been around this world some twenty times or so;
Aye, although I ain’t a stranger,
To any kind o’ danger,
Yet I’m ready still to meet ’em with a “Yo, heave ho!”
But although I’m able-bodied, and still fit to furl a “topsel,”
Or to reef a “maintop-gallant” in a stiff nor’-eastern gale:
Though I’m sober and quick-handed, yet just like a hulk I’m stranded,